Summary And Analysis On Practices Of Looking

Looking is to actively make meaning of that world with a more involved sense of purpose and direction. From looking we interpret social interaction and meanings. Professors Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright explain all about these concepts in the pages of their book Practices of Looking. It is an interesting and appealing novel offers understanding visual culture. Filled with numerous illustrations, the book observes how images play a very significant role in our everyday lives.

The concepts of reproduction and demonstration relative to the times past of visual technologies are scrutinized in chapter four of the book. From the development of perspective in art to inventive movements such as Realism and Cubism, the chapter draws out the history of concepts of realism in images. It analyzes the occurrence of visual knowledge, from cinematography to the Internet and how they have influenced the way images are portrayed in society. This chapter, in whole, presents an analysis of how the meanings of images have altered over time.

The concepts of the mass media and the public sphere are observed in chapter five of Practices of Looking. It discusses a little about the history of mass media, or to be more specific, the analysis of propaganda and contradictory theories of the media's independent views. Special attention is paid to the rise of programming at a specific, limited audience or sales market that was motivated by independent idealism and industry profit.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, consumer civilization increased dramatically and chapter six concentrates on the theories that can be applied to assess and disassemble advertising. It presents a thorough historical preface of consumer society, citing its rise in the perspective of modern ideologies, as well as the shifting of modern society to one of independence. This chapter creates connections between the tactics of advertising and the principles of fine art. It uses a plethora of advertisements to demonstrate the way that ads address consumers and the connection between images and text.

The concept of postmodernism and the innovations of modern culture are the main focus in chapter seven. In the chapter, it states, "While opposition to mass culture and its saturation of the world with images is one of the hallmarks of modernism, postmodernism emphasizes irony and a sense of one's own enmeshment in low or popular culture. The forms of low, mass, or commercial culture so disdained by modernists are understood, in the context of postmodernism, as the inescapable conditions in and through which we generate our critical texts" (pg. 221). In this chapter, postmodernism's appearance as a way of life is recognized from the examples from modern art, structural design, and film. These models help to explain postmodernism, which is a period that is marked by imagery.

In chapter eight, the standards of looking at science and expression are acknowledged. This chapter develops ideas with scientific images from the early nineteenth century to modern day. It makes one realize that whether the ideas are correct or not, most people today take scientific information and images more seriously than any other. It explains how imagery is evident in areas we would never think to associate imagery from, such as law and medicine.

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